Seòmar agus comataidhean

I would love to know how many are repeated follow-ups because people did not ask the right question and were answered absolutely on the terms of the question that they asked, so they think, “I’ve got to ask another question,” in the same way as they might interrogate Google.

Exactly. What you are really saying is that everybody in every avenue of public service should be responsible for the management of the information within their remit.

I think it had to do with the fact that public—

I mentioned procurement, given that so much of public service delivery is now done by commercial operations. That is all well and good, but there is a limit to how much information commercial operations are liable to provide on a FOI basis, if any at all.

You have to be careful that you do not ask the question that you do not necessarily want the answer to. That is a good point.

Another dimension is that, when commercial operations bid to work in the public sector to deliver a public service, they already go through hoops of fire even to be considered as potential providers of that service. On top of that, you have to ladle in all the other costs of what we are describing. There are many dimensions to this.

I think that I have exhausted my well of questions, convener.

Forgive my ignorance, convener, but is the report published?

They voted themselves into oblivion.

That surprises me a little, given what the two that have been disbanded covered.

I put on record the fact that some CPGs might have struggled with some of the code’s requirements because of the number of ministerial changes that occurred in the reporting period. Some people who are now ministers were prominent members of those CPGs. I assume that we will take an appropriately lenient approach to those CPGs by giving them time to get their affairs in order again so that they conform to the minimal requirements that are set out for the existence of CPGs.

Oh—right.